


human after all

by Elendraug



Series: "I'm basically fucking him." [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Divergent Timelines, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Robotics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 13:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7363915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aren't you something to admire; you were right here all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	human after all

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreakyHumanShit (Maim)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maim/gifts), [Invah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Invah/gifts), [kyuutier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyuutier/gifts).



> written to these songs: [♫ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH2tp72T13o) & [♫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXYeARRyDWk)
> 
> [On this day in computing history, IBM announced their Model 650,](http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/July/2/) [the world's first mass-produced computer, which used punched cards to operate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_650)

“Do you ever wonder if we screwed up?”

Hal looks at Dirk, who’s standing at the stove, stirring scrambled eggs over very low heat. They’ve had gas along with their other basic utilities this whole time, although the wonders of continued physical utility function are perhaps not as impressive as continued internet access. “I don’t have to wonder. We fucked up all the time.”

Dirk lifts the frying pan off the heat by a few inches to keep it from sticking. He breaks up the eggs where they’ve begun to solidify too much, then sets them back on the burner. “You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

There’s a long silence between them as Dirk turns off the stove entirely, and steps to the side to retrieve spices from on top of their microwave. He folds in cayenne pepper and cumin, then grabs a pinch of kosher salt out of a dish, and lets the salt fall from his hand as he flicks it away from his fingertips.

Hal brings him a small plate and a fork. Dirk lifts the pan to serve the eggs onto it, and takes a bite.

“Damn,” Dirk says, through a mouthful of eggs. “I left these on just fuckin’ slightly too long.”

“Let it be an opportunity to accept your imperfections.”

Dirk gives him a look, and shakes his head, smiling. He lifts the fork towards Hal. “Here.”

“Aren’t you going to at least make airplane noises?”

Dirk does, and swerves the fork until some of the eggs fall off and land with a soft splat on the kitchen floor. “See, and here I was ready to make a _Con Air_ joke, but now I just made a mess.”

“I’ll choose not to comment on how much of your life is a mess.” Hal takes the fork from Dirk and scoops up a new forkful of eggs, and feeds himself. 

“I need to shave.”

Hal rolls the mouthful around on his tongue until he’s savored the taste and texture of it enough to be satisfied. He stoops down with a paper towel to wipe the fallen eggs off the floor, then spits his mouthful of chewed eggs into the paper towel, too. “I think you’d look good with sideburns.”

“You think so?” Dirk rubs at the side of his face, stubble catching on his hand. “Maybe I should grow them out.”

“You’d look hot.”

“Hmm.” Dirk eats another bite of the eggs. “You don’t think it’d be too… frat boy?” 

“Only if you start wearing popped collars.” Hal opens the refrigerator, gets himself a recently-alchemized Mountain Dew, and pops the tab. He takes a swig, swirls it in his mouth for a while, and then spits it into the sink.

“What if I _want_ to wear popped collars?”

“Are you trying to bait me into saying I’d disown you?” Hal laughs. “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

Dirk finishes off the eggs and sets the plate and fork in the sink. He takes the can of soda from Hal and lifts it to his lips. “It’s late in general.”

“Late with an eight?” Hal asks. “You know what today is, right?”

Dirk shakes his head and takes a sip of soda.

“Eight years, Dirk. It’s been eight years, eight months, and eight days since we’ve entered the session.”

“When’s the hour-minute-second mark happening?”

Hal shrugs. “Soon, probably. I can calculate it out if you want.”

“I’m not sure how much I care.”

“Depends on if you think it’s numerologically significant for any pseudo-spiritual reason.”

“Is it?”

Hal leans back against the counter, and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Dirk steps into Hal’s personal space and leans against him. They’re exactly the same height, nearly the same weight (although some of Hal’s building materials skew the measurements in his direction), and with the exception of silicone replacing organic tissue in Hal’s structure, they’re almost identical. A painstaking effort in alchemization resulted in Hal’s new body, the ultimate iteration after a series of refinements, including the CAPTCHA code for Dirk’s physical form to finally match and complement the initial CAPTCHA of his brain. Dirk had left Hal to his own devices (literally) as he worked, and didn’t ask questions when Hal discarded unfortunate uncanny valley mannequins out through the apartment window and into the ravines below.

The smuppet, horse sculpture, and Snoop Dogg Snow Cone Machete editions, however, are stored in a closet for safekeeping.

Hal’s eyes remain one of the few differences, with a metallic red diaphragm that controls the aperture of his irises. He curls his arm around Dirk’s waist, around his side, and lets his fingers rest on his waist, at the hem of his t-shirt.

“Yeah,” Dirk says, finally. He considers the yellow-green soda that collects in the lip of the aluminum. “I can hardly believe it.”

“Have you heard anything from Jake lately?”

Dirk brightens. “He and Roxy managed to befriend one of the underlings on LOMAX. I don’t even fucking know how they did it, but they’ve got this huge skeleton creature eating out of their hands. It’s fuckin’ unreal.”

“Considering Jake’s track record with frightening fauna, I’m honestly surprised.”

“Ha, yeah.” Dirk leans his weight even more against Hal, and nuzzles his cheek against Hal’s shoulder. Hal rubs at his hip, through his jeans.

“Well. Good. That’s some good news.”

“Speaking of good news,” Dirk says, closing his eyes, “Jane wanted to know if we’d like to go over for dinner at her place sometime soon. She’s trying to get everybody to commit to a day and time.”

“If anyone else is pumped for repeating numbers, today could work.” Hal kisses the top of Dirk’s head, still marveling at the simple pleasure of feeling soft things again, after enduring years of absent nerve endings. “Are we doing anything tonight?”

“Probably not.” Dirk nudges his rib structure with an elbow, conspiratorially. “Maybe each other?”

Hal puts both arms around Dirk to hug him from behind, his hands resting on Dirk’s stomach, and smirks. “Maybe not during Jane’s special events this time, huh?” 

Dirk laughs at the memory, and holds the soda can in his left hand while raising his right arm up to reach back to gently touch the side of Hal’s face. “That was a hell of a party.”

“I met somebody special there,” Hal says, unable to technically breathe in the scent of Dirk’s hair, but very capable of analyzing the components of the fragrance from his shampoo. It’s almost the same feeling as it was, when he was thirteen and had olfactory receptors. It’s as close as he’ll get at this point, anyway. “Somebody from ChristianMingle.”

Dirk laughs loudly and freely. “ _God._ ”

“Exactly.”

Dirk turns around in his arms and sets the half-full Mountain Dew on the countertop, then lifts both hands to hold Hal’s face. Hal can feel the warmth of his skin as Dirk touches Hal’s ears, rubbing gently behind them and occasionally into his hair. It’s not the same; it never will be, but it’s fucking close. It’s so much closer than before. “What a lucky guy he must be.”

Hal takes in the sight of him, permanently archiving high-definition footage by default these days. “It seems he feels that way about it.”

Dirk leans in, his eyelids lowered. “He feels that way every day of his life.”

Hal kisses him. Dirk kisses back. Hal can feel his stubble against his face.

Hal kisses him, and thinks back with perfect clarity upon the gradual return of sensation to his experience of the world, from a distant awareness of possible overheating in the shades, to the sharply accurate ability to navigate towers as well as any jungle terrain, to the damn near perfectly replicated artificial nerve endings he’s meticulously crafted for himself, both with Dirk’s help and on his own. He almost feels whole again, the lingering surreality of having lost and regained not only a phantom limb, but an entire prosthetic physical body, back into a corporeal casing that fits like Dirk’s well-worn fingerless gloves; a second skin, but not and never the original.

When he allows himself to get cloyingly sentimental, as goddamn sicky-saccharine as the Dew, he thinks that he feels the closest to whole when he’s with Dirk.

Hal stops kissing him only to draw him into a tight hug, with every bit the precision of his former Brobot build, but without quite the same potential for accidental harm. This body is meant to hold and be held.

Dirk sighs against Hal’s shoulder, where Hal’s wearing a stupendously stupid graphic tee of his own design. “This is nice.”

“You’re nice.”

“Tell it to the judge.”

Hal rubs at Dirk’s back, feeling out the muscle that’s adapted to a bizarrely and unexpectedly domestic lifestyle. He’s taller, older, stronger. Organic. “I’m not required to testify against you, though, am I?”

Dirk makes a pleased noise in response to the back massage. “Pretend I made a really clever _Timaeus_ joke.”

Hal moves his hands up to Dirk’s hair, and intentionally produces conditions for static electricity to lift the fine strands towards his fingertips. 

Dirk laughs. “Put that down.”

“Awful. Now I have to pet you.”

“A tragedy.”

Hal strokes Dirk’s hair until it’s lying flat again, although the air still smells like the slight electrical discharge. “If I do something lame, will you judge me?”

“Somebody else is already the judge in this extended metaphor, man.”

Hal moves his hands again until one’s supportive and gentle at the small of Dirk’s back, and the other is massaging at the tension at the nape of Dirk’s neck. He keeps his face close to Dirk’s and speaks against his ear, literally breathless and with a lowered volume. “I’d like to share a passage from a space tragedy.”

“Mhm?”

Hal kisses Dirk’s cheek and starts singing, his voice calm and soothing. “ _D-Stri, D-Stri, give me your answer, do._ ”

Dirk smiles, half-laughing, and hugs him closer. He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t want to make Hal feel awkward about it, especially not if it’ll make him stop.

[“ _I’m half crazy, all for the love of you._ ”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41U78QP8nBk)

The smell of their apartment, their kitchen, the breeze from the open windows where LOTAK’s air is clear at last, high above the dangerous zones: all of it feels so fully like home that Dirk’s heart nearly can’t bear it. He exhales, deeply, his cheek pressed to Hal’s and his arms wound securely around him.

“ _It won’t be a stylish marriage; I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two._ ”

Dirk kisses Hal’s cheek and smiles, his eyes nearly closed, blinking back tears. “Rad. Let’s figure out how to combine parkour and BMX on the skyline here.”

“It’s a date.”

They stand together in silence for a long, quiet moment, until Hal feels something brush against his shin.

He looks down.

“Looks like someone else wants pets, too.”

Minihoof makes a snuffly sound and starts trying to chew at Hal’s pant leg. Hal tugs it away from her mouth, and he and Dirk crouch down to carefully pet her. The softness of her ears and the relative coarseness of her mane are a complete joy in Hal’s life, with sensation restored to his fingertips, with the option to interact with her at all.

“Good pony,” says Dirk. “Best friend.”

“I love you,” says Hal.

Dirk lets Minihoof nibble on his fingers. “Who, her or me?”

“Both of you.”

Dirk smiles and stands up, wiping his hand on his jeans. “Well,” he says, en route to the refrigerator to retrieve some baby carrots, “I love my life here, with you two, and with our friends.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“And,” he adds, kneeling down to offer a carrot to Minihoof, who crunches it noisily, “even if we never figure out what the fuck’s going on out there, or how long we’re supposed to wait for the others to get here, I’m fine with that.”

Dirk takes another baby carrot from the bag and has it at the ready for when Minihoof finishes off the first one. Hal takes a carrot from the bag and feeds it to Dirk, who chews while speaking. “Even if we fucked shit up, I’m glad it brought us here.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Hal confirms. “As long as this lasts.”

“Yeah, man. We’re family. You, me, and this pony. I love you guys.” Dirk feeds Minihoof the second carrot. There are mashed, wet orange bits all over his fingertips, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m good. I’m real good with this, even if you _can’t_ afford a carriage.”

“ _I can feel it_ , Dirk.”

Dirk rolls his eyes and leans over to kiss Hal’s forehead. “Don’t make the movie references depressing, dude.”

“It’s true. And it’s a good thing, too.”

“Fair.” He stands up, sets the bag on the counter, and washes his hands. “So. Let’s see if Jane wants to do the dinner thing tonight. Sound good?”

Hal runs his fingers over Minihoof’s mane, regarding her fondly, then glances up to Dirk, smiling. “Sounds good to me.”


End file.
